Netanyahu argues that October 7th would have happened under any Prime Minister due to systemic failures and other external factors. But a closer look shows these arguments are weaker than they appear. While responsibility is shared, Netanyahu’s long tenure, policy choices, and inconsistent standards of accountability make it difficult to argue that his leadership played no meaningful role.

Benjamin Netanyahu faces the challenge of seeking reelection after presiding over the catastrophic failure of October 7th.

His defense has taken a clear shape. On the one hand, he and his supporters argue that the attack would have happened under any Prime Minister, given the systemic failures involved. On the other, they claim that Israel’s military successes since then demonstrate his uniquely capable leadership.

But how strong are these arguments? This post focuses on the failure of October 7th and the events leading up to it. We will save the management of the war for another time.

The Case for Netanyahu

Before picking it apart, let’s present the strongest version of Netanyahu’s defense:

The intelligence failure was real and staggering. Senior IDF and Shin Bet officials insisted that Hamas was deterred in the weeks leading up to the attack, and that they were more interested in economic stability than in starting a war. Even as suspicious activity mounted on the night of October 6th, they failed to wake the Prime Minister. The people whose job it was to see the threat coming got it catastrophically wrong, and Netanyahu wasn’t even in the room.

Then there’s the comparison to his rivals. Netanyahu points out that Bennett and Lapid ran the same containment policy toward Gaza that he did. His supporters go further, arguing that Bennett specifically bears blame for expanding the number of Gazan workers permitted into Israel, some of whom allegedly fed Hamas intelligence used in the attack. Netanyahu recently published a document containing selective quotes from 2014 security cabinet protocols during Operation Protective........

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